As technology advances, more companies are looking to implement social media into their marketing plan. While this can be a great way to increase brand exposure and bring in more sales, it is only successful if a plan is put into place. Many companies try social media and quickly fail. Take these tips into consideration when planning your company’s social media marketing strategy. With proper planning, you can have a social media marketing plan that works!

1. Decide what you want to accomplish with social media.

Every marketing plan needs to have a goal in mind. What do you want to achieve? Take these suggestions into consideration:

• Do you want to improve customer service?
• Do you want to increase brand awareness?
• Do you want to increase sales?
• Do you want to provide product support and company information?
• Do you want to create an easy way for customers to provide feedback of both praise and disgust? (remember you can learn from both and often times even benefit more from negative feedback to make improvements to your business that you may have overlooked)

2. Decide who you want to reach.

You will need to decide who you want to reach with your social media efforts. This will help you develop appropriate content as well as provide a baseline for your entire social media marketing strategy. Some ideas of who you might want to reach:

• Potential customers
• Current customers
• Potential joint-venture business prospects
• Community members
• Specific demographics
• A specific geographical area

3. Outline your available resources.

You will want to have a plan as to what you want to accomplish with the resources that you have available. Consider these resources:

• What is your budget?
• Will you need to hire assistance?
• How many employees will be able to work on your efforts?
• How much time can you devote to your social media marketing?

Have you answered the above questions? Now it is time to organize your answers and begin your marketing plan. Make sure that you consider all of the aspects of your social media marketing plans and goals before you begin. Using social media without a plan in place can lead to unsuccessful results.

You will also want to decide on what is going to be the most effective way to measure your results. If you do not do this, you will be unable to tell if your marketing plan is actually working. As you begin to test out your marketing plan, make adjustments. As you begin to analyze your marketing efforts, you will be able to see what is working for your company and what is not. Act accordingly.

With care and planning, your company can greatly benefit from the use of social media marketing. Spend the time planning now to help save time and effort in the future! Social media is a social animal that isn’t going away any time in the near future. We are here to help answer or clarify any questions that you may have.